God is Not Done

Why do so many heroes of the Bible act so poorly? All of the characters that we have met and spent some time with so far all had this tragic flaw at some point in their story. Adam was the literal first one. He was completely set up for success, but when given the temptation to sin, he did. The same went for Cain, the first born of Adam, until his brother did better than he did. Noah pursued after God for over a hundred and some years building a boat to save the world, but he couldn't escape the allure of drunkenness. Abraham started out with immediate obedience to what God commanded him, even if he did have some fits and starts along the way. 

In each of these flaws, however, it seems that they at least started well. Noah was a righteous man in God's eyes before the call to him went out. Abraham obviously started out well, and even the errors that he made along the way were only after much time of waiting and seemingly no move on God's part. 

This little episode is different. For the first time, we are getting an intimate look at these twins from the moment of their birth. We met Noah when he was already 500 years old. We met Abraham at 75 years old. Yes, we saw Isaac when he was born and again at probably 14, but there wasn't a whole lot of interaction with him. One has figured out a few things at this age. Yet here, we are meeting these men very early on. We are seeing them without the years of maturity and therefore getting to see God work on someone from the beginning. 

We will see our main point today: Bad starts don't have to have bad finishes